Corruption leaders

Corruption is one of the major reasons for growing popularity of nationalism and populism-reads Transparency International’s report “People and Corruption: Europe and Central Asia, which is part of the Global Corruption Barometer 2016 series.

Nearly 60,000 citizens in 42 countries of those regions were interviewed as part of Transparency International’s survey. According to the survey findings, one in three surveyed citizen considers corruption as one of the biggest problems facing their country. This figure rises to two in three in Kosovo and Moldova.

53% of surveyed individuals are discontent with how their governments are fighting with this phenomenon.  The governments of Ukraine (86%), Moldova (84%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (82%) and Spain (80%) were judged worst by their citizens.  

On average, one in six households paid a bribe when they accessed public services. Although fewer households paid bribes for public services in many EU member states, rates were significantly higher further east. The EU member states with the highest corruption rates are Romania (38%) and Lithuania (24%). The ‘leaders’ among the rest of the countries are: Tajikistan (50%), Moldova (42%), Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine (38% each).

General corruption rating in the post-socialist countries is as follows:

50% – Tajikistan
42% – Moldova
38% – Kyrgyzstan
38% – Azerbaijan
38% – Ukraine
34% – Albania
34% – Russia
29% – Kazakhstan
29% – Romania
27% – Bosnia and Herzegovina
24% – Lithuania
24% – Armenia
22% – Serbia
22% – Hungary
20% – Belarus
18% – Uzbekistan
17% – Bulgaria
16% – Montenegro
15% – Latvia
12% – FYR Macedonia
12% – Slovakia
10% – Kosovo
10% – Croatia
9% – the Czech Republic
7% – Georgia
7% – Poland
5% – Estonia
3% – Slovenia

“…corrupt elites and oligarchs are hard to remove. But we have seen that it can be done if people stand together to demand higher standards from their leaders and the judiciary acts independently to hold them to account, said Jose Ugaz, Chair of Transparency International.

Transparency International makes 4 key recommendations for fighting corruption:

·   to have transparent rules on lobbying

·   to ensure independence of the judiciary, reduce the influence of the executive over the judiciary

·   to adopt and enforce comprehensive legislation to protect whistle blowers

·   to ensure appropriate follow-up to any disclosure of corruption cases

Published: 23.11.2016